


Brief Encounters

by Iambic



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, tardis_gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-02
Updated: 2009-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey has an adventure, and there are dolphins. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brief Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [doyle_sb4](http://doyle_sb4.livejournal.com) at the [tardis_gen](http://community.livejournal.com/tardis_gen) challenge, over on Livejournal.

Mickey lands on his feet, though immediately thereafter his knees buckle under him and he folds in to the ground, stomach rolling. He spends the next two minutes or so retching desperately and thoroughly regretting the large breakfast he ate only about an hour ago.  
When he finally manages to stand up and look around, he finds himself being watched by a tall and vaguely humanoid blue… thing. Alien, probably. It's always aliens. The Rift probably picked him up and dumped him somewhere halfway across the universe. This would probably freak him out a lot more before he started traveling between alternate realities.  
As is, this place gets points for creativity. Mickey landed in what looks like the middle of some sort of city, if the tall green metal spires to each side are really buildings. They have doors in them of a size that looks comfortable for the impressive height of the alien looking down at him in apparent curiosity, and others in varying shades of blue are passing them by and gawking.  
"Ever seen a human before?" Mickey asks, rising shakily to his feet. This is surprisingly easy to do; he feels crazily buoyant here, like he's floating in water or something. But he's not hindered by any sort of pressure around him. Must be some sort of gravity thing – maybe this is a small planet than Earth, or maybe it's not spinning quite so quickly. This probably explains the natives, who look a lot like bipedal dolphins now that Mickey thinks about it, and move in a sort of undulating fashion like they haven't quite progressed from swimming to walking.  
He doesn't get an immediate response to his question, though. The alien looks quizzically at him for a long moment, tilting its ovoid head and blinking two murky, almond-shaped eyes. Then it makes a soft query sound, accompanied by a train of clicks and whistles. Very definitely some sort of dolphin, then. Of course, Mickey never did get around to taking that marine biology course in university, so he has no idea how to begin trying to figure out how to communicate.  
"I don't understand you," he says very slowly and carefully, as if it will make a difference.  
"Oooooorrr," trills the alien dolphin, and then it reaches out and grabs Mickey's arm with surprising strength. It takes a step and then stops and looks back at him, and Mickey somehow interprets that he's being asked to come along. He's not sure if 'no' is an acceptable response, so he takes a step of his own and tries to smile in an encouraging manner. Last thing he wants to do is make a bad first impression on the race of aliens that he has been dropped into.  
\--  
The alien dolphin leads him down several streets and into a larger version of the recurring green metal buildings. It seems like a happening place, containing a shifting crowd of dolphins of varying shapes and shades going about their business in all directions. Mickey and his guide walk straight through the crowd, to the other side of the large entryway, and then up a flight of stairs and to a wooden door, which looks extremely out of place surrounded by metal as it is.  
Mickey's guide steps up to what must be a doorman, or a guard, and the two converse in a clipped sequence of clicks and chirps. Then the doorman, or possibly guard, reaches out and opens the wooden door, and Mickey is ushered into another room.  
This room is full of books, all in varying shapes and sizes, and with titles in too many scripts to count. Mickey spots one in Spanish and does a double-take, and then a hand comes down on his shoulder and he spins around and does another double-take. Captain Jack Harkness is standing there and grinning at him like it's Christmas come early or something. "So," Jack asks, "come here often?"  
Mickey stares at him for a moment, and then some little voice that sounds vaguely like Rose in his head tells him of course Jack is here, because Jack gets around in every way possible. He probably banged the dolphin king and was granted access to all sorts of hidden knowledge, or something. "I got picked up," Mickey replies. "But then she dumped me here."  
Jack laughs delightedly, looking suddenly younger, and Mickey for the first time notices the lines on his face, the grey that freely threads his hair.  
"So what's your excuse?" Mickey asks, waving his hand at the room at large. "Big unexplored universe, one immortal man; why aren't you off adventuring?"  
"I am," Jack tells him. "My ship started malfunctioning. The original maker isn't around anymore, unfortunately, but word is that these fellows know something about it. They can't – or maybe just don't – speak directly to me, although funnily enough, they read English. And other Earth languages. So they let me use their library."  
"And then I show up," Mickey says, shaking his head. "What kind of coincidence is that?"  
Jack gestures toward the far side of the room, where a series of shelving units holds a remarkable array of items. There's a crisps packet on one end, and a whole line of left socks in more shapes than Mickey's seen feet. "They have their own Rift here," Jack says. "And a penchant for Earth items. I actually think that's how they got here: a pod of dolphins, picked up by the Rift, landed here and got the hang of walking since gravity was so much less of a problem."  
"I've landed in alien Cardiff," Mickey moans.  
\--  
The dolphins, as it turns out, play host to a lot of other humans, and a lot of other not-so-humans, all of whom invariably end up in one of several huge museum-library buildings like the one Jack was in. Most of them apparently fell through the Rift the same way Mickey did, but one group proudly inform him of their journey from the next system over, having heard of the "Phineeri" scholars and their multicultural studies.  
"They have collectively studied and mastered every known language, and some that are only known to themselves and the original speakers," says one of their number, a girl who looks way too young for interstellar travel, especially for the purpose of academia. She can't be more than thirteen.  
"Their translation technology is renowned throughout seven galaxies," adds another, an older woman who smiles encouragingly at the girl. They could be mother and daughter – they have similarly wavy, dark hair.  
Another man, not part of the group but listening in on the conversation, leans in. "It translates everything but their own language. Only a favoured few ever get to learn that."  
"Is there anything else to do besides research here?" Mickey asks Jack, more than a little unnerved by the scholastics surrounding him. At least in Cardiff he could go find a pub, watch whatever game was on. Do dolphins even have games other than jumping through the ring and catching the fish?  
But Jack grins, like there's a joke he's not telling. "Funny you should ask."  
\--  
Alien dolphins do have games. And they do involve jumping through the ring. Instead of catching fish, though, they drink a lot of quasi-beer.  
Maybe this planet isn't all that bad, after all.  
\--  
When they return to the library building, several hours and quasi-beers later, a whole mob – pod? – of alien dolphins swarms them. Mickey, before he can protest, is dragged off into a side room, where a large amount of very complex-looking computer lines two walls, and a platform that could've been taken out of the TARDIS stands on the other end. The dolphins all chatter very enthusiastically in their clicks and whistles. Jack follows them in and starts laughing as soon as he enters.  
"What's the joke?" Mickey asks, glancing around him. He worked with a fair number of alien computers while at Torchwood, but he's never seen anything like this one. It looks like a movie set – way too fancy, covered with flashing lights and buttons.  
Jack approaches the console, caresses it briefly. "It's a Rift manipulator. We had one of these back in Cardiff, though not nearly as pretty as this one. It can pick up on the residual Rift energy you've got on you, and trace it back to where you came from."  
Several alien dolphins start up further chatter, and then they all rearrange themselves about the room by important-looking areas and pieces of equipment. One of the dolphins nods encouragingly at the platform. "She probably means that if you stand there and trust her, she can use the magic rip in the fabric of the time-space continuum to send you back home," Jack says, with his best believe-me-gorgeous-thang grin plastered on. He probably knows more than he's saying, but Mickey can't prove this, and he does need to get home. So he grits his teeth and steps onto the raised circle, feet rattling the mesh in its centre. The dolphins all smile at him, and then there's a huge flash of light and he can't see a thing.  
Then he's overtaken by the familiar sensation of travel-by-Rift, like trying to swim through one of those spinning carnival walkways. It spits him out on pavement, and for the second time that day he sits up and empties his stomach on the side of what he really hopes is a road.  
When he finishes, he looks up and promptly starts swearing really emphatically. The sky is full of Daleks, and there's a whole platoon of Cybermen marching down the road. "Canary Wharf, really?" Mickey demands of the sky, bright and blue and utterly bereft of Rifts of any sort.  
And, just to cement the day as the oddest he's ever had, ever, even including the time he encountered nineteenth century France in a spaceship, Mickey hears a very familiar _vworp, vworp_ sound coming from behind him. He spins, away from the carnage of Canary Wharf, but there's no blue police box there. Instead it's a very respectable newspaper kiosk, out of which steps Captain Jack, looking happy to see him all over again.  
"Need a lift?" Jack asks.  
"You're a bastard," Mickey replies, but steps in anyway. "Why didn't you tell me you had a TARDIS before?"  
"Didn't want to spoil the surprise," Jack says, and shuts the door. "Back to proper Cardiff with you, then."  
"I'll never get away," Mickey mutters.


End file.
